Why Newt won’t win

Aside from the lobbying, the half million dollar Tiffany bill, the three wives and his famous thin skin, there is this (h/t Don). (Also, those thin lips . . .)

I know this will shock you, but . . .

. . .  Time Magazine thinks Americans shouldn’t have to process all that  challenging stuff. Especially during the “Season of Shopping”. More important things to think about you know.

Again? Christie says “Obama’s just a bystander”

Has he noticed Romney sliding? Have the pleadings of adoring fans and desperate Republicans broken through his usual good sense and otherwise honest assessment of himself?  It can all be pretty seductive. Convention draft anyone?

Connie Mack ain’t no Connie Mack

So Connie Mack IV, son of a political dynasty here in FL, went on Sean Hannity’s show to throw his (somewhat soiled) hat into the ring, announcing he will vie for the Republican nomination to run against Sen. Bill Nelson (D-sorta), former astronaut and straightest arrow in the quiver.

Mack previously announced he was not running, saying that it would take away from his ability to spend time with his two small children and his wife (who is herself a member of the House from the opposite end of the country, Rep. Mary Bono Mack of California).

(Ummm, that seems a little confusing. Where do these people live? What is the legal residence of this married couple? Aren’t our congress critters supposed to live in their District or State?)

Son of a respected former Senator, Mack hasn’t quite his Dad’s resume. He has, instead, a somewhat inglorious history:

• Before trading on the name of your father (a U.S. senator) to begin your current career as a full-time servant of the people in 2001, the most meaningful employment you had was as a “special events coordinator” for a bunch of Hooters restaurants. Boiled down to its essence: You were the go-to guy for folks who wanted to have scantily clad waitresses appear at their events.
•  you needed 6½ years to get an undergraduate degree in advertising, which you accomplished three months shy of your 26th birthday.
• You had at least four physical confrontations in public between 1987 and 1992, including one that ended with you being arrested for fighting with an off-duty cop who was working as a bouncer at a Jacksonville nightclub, and another when you got into a fistfight with another driver while you were waiting for a drawbridge to go down in West Palm Beach.
• Until you got elected to the Florida House, you didn’t even take the time to vote in some elections, even when your father was on the ballot and running for re-election to the Senate seat you now want.
• Soon after getting to Washington, you ditched your Florida wife, the mother of your two young children, to marry celebrity U.S. Rep. Mary Bono, the former wife of Sonny Bono.

He’s got the important political advantage of name recognition, which is sometimes enough. People may think they’re voting for more of the good Connie Mack. They will be disappointed.

George Will is most egregious and he sends his Christmas cards by FedEx

George Will doesn’t like the post office. He thinks it’s not needed; he even says:

. . . surely the government could cede this function to the private sector , which probably could have a satisfactory system functioning quicker than you can say Fed Ex, UPS and Wal-Mart.

He sees the first two as delivery vehicles; Wal-Mart would become the physical post office. Very convenient for places that don’t have a Wal-Mart.

He adds that the staff at those places “have an incentive to practice civility”. George has never met my carrier or been to my post office, where there are actual humans available to answer customer questions, something they do well and knowledgeably. A good for-profit would dump those helpers in a heartbeat (hmmm, how many jobs would that be?).

But he really gets the disingenuous prize for this shockingly dishonest bit:

Labor costs are 80 percent of USPS costs (53% of UPS’, 32% of FedEx’s), in part because it has negotiated very friendly union contracts.

Leave aside for the moment the usual we-don’t-need-no-stinkin-unions mantra – I’ll wager he left a little something out of that equation, like this: I’ve not noticed tens of thousands of UPS or FedEx employees walking  or driving every inch of residential property in the country every day.

And what would happen to the direct mail industry if FedEx had to hit every house in my neighborhood. No mention – including it would be quite inconvenient when bashing is the point.

There’s a serious discussion to be had about how to streamline the post office. But we’ll leave Will out of that discussion; he’s not interested in being serious.

Romney and Pawlenty even look like Kerry and Edwards

Yeah, that’s Moe’s prediction – Romney picks Pawlenty (unless he’s another Mormon – that would be a spoiler for sure. Is he?).

(By the way, go google images for Kerry and Edwards – was there something going on there that we missed?)

Not political: more Fry and Laurie

I could watch these guys all day. (Thanks friend Shep for this one)

Mom, apple pie, the flag and OWS

I just picked this up from Bartcop, where someone else picked it up from a facebook post. There was no link.

• In the 1930s and 40s factory workers, miners, and laborers demonstrated for better and safer working conditions.
•  They were first ignored, then mocked, then violent conflict erupted. Even the US army was called to “maintain order”. A number were killed. The result was the union movement.
•  In the 1950s and 60s, blacks demonstrated for equal rights. They were first ignored, then mocked, then shot, beaten, attacked with dogs and fire hoses, some were killed. But the result was civil rights/anti discrimination laws.
• In the 1960s and 70s there were demonstrations against the Vietnam War. First ignored, then mocked, then the clubs, fire-hoses and bullets came out. But the result was the war ended!
• Today we have financial inequality and corporate abuse. Some chose to demonstrate,. They were at first ignored, then mocked, and now the violence has begun. I believe that the result will be that the people will prevail!

I’d add that it took street marches, protests and violence for over 30 years until women got the right to vote in 1920. Later,  mountains of anti-discrimination legislation resulted from the feminist protest movement of the 70’s.

That’s the way stuff happens. That’s the way we were born as a nation.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.                                                                                  – Mohandas Ghandi

Attack of teh too-too stupids!

The Algonquin Hotel in New York is a venerated establishment. In the 1920’s  it was home to the celebrated Algonquin Round Table, where literary luminaries, critics and wits of the day held forth over champagne and ice-cold martinis, and came to define a style and an era. Every blues singer of note had to play the Algonquin Oak Room to earn real stripes. A place of history and New York lore.

A charming part of that history began in 1932 and has continued for the 80 years since: the Algonquin has a pet, an honored feline – has had ten of them to date. Like today’s resident, Matilda, they’ve always had free run of the place.

Until now.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (!?) has stepped in and thrown a leash on Matilda, tradition be damned. Food is served at the Algonquin, and we can’t have animals roaming around, they say. Officialdom has nothing else to do it seems.

The Ugly Shopper

Look how they hug those waffle-makers tightly, close to their bodies. They look like desperately hungry people fighting over a food drop. But no, it’s just the American consumer, the one who used to be the American citizen, out shopping. And grabbing the bargains at Walmart, where they live for this shit. Ugly stuff.

Friday oldie

For some reason, youtube decided last night to once again allow me access to my original youtube account. I’ve no explanation for this any more than I have for why they shut me out a few months ago. Look what I found . . .

 

 

 

Little things mean a lot

Was reading the paper this morning and something that my eyes have probably slid over for years, suddenly jumped out for me.

It was a story about the drug Avastin which had been taken off the market. The first words of the story were “The Obama Administration today revoked . . . “

Until recent years (10? 15? I don’t know), that story would have led with “The Food and Drug Administration today revoked . . . “

I think it makes a difference. An FDA story is by its nature not very political. But use the name of the President in its place, and that story immediately takes on political overtones.

Just sayin’.

Not The Onion

The damn thing is here.

The. Thanksgiving. Classic.

Good gobbly gobbly y’all and a neighbor’s story

I don’t host Thanksgiving but I am the traditional baker of the pies, a task I really enjoy. So the shopping is done, ingredients are at hand, the weather is lovely and the doors and windows are wide open. I’m ready!

There will be two pies baked today and the pumpkin gets done tomorrow morning. Today’s pies will not be refrigerated but wrapped in cloth and left on the lanai for the overnight. And tomorrow’s pie will come to the table still warm.

I’ll bring two to Thanksgiving dinner, but the third is for my neighbors across the street.

They are the future – at least I hope so! This is an interesting family who appear, on the face of it, perfectly normal. They are six, which is larger than most these days, but with school, hockey, soccer, an SUV and pickup, bikes, flower gardens, chores and electronics, they are otherwise a normal and handsome representation of a U.S. family, circa 2011.

Except for one thing . . . they are about one year away from taking their home life entirely off the grid. They’re fully integrated into the community and school activities, but at home they will be independent (Okay, they’re keeping internet and cable.)

They’ve converted the house (and pool!) to solar. Two rain barrels supply the pool and kitchen. The rest is on a well.  A big wood stove heats the house in winter. They have a kitchen garden. Actually, two – one in their backyard and a much larger garden on a bare plot of land about half a mile away. Both are fenced. Both are watered from wells, and tended by Dad and the four kids. They’ve also got chickens and guinea hens out back and share the eggs. They’ve  begun playing with grape vines, thinking of making their own wine.

Dad owns a small business and employs a few guys; as such his income is mostly secure. (If necessary they could probably get by on the earnings of son #1 who mows my lawn!) They fully own that business as well as the house and cars. There’s a fishing boat too, which goes to the Gulf regularly and comes back with lottsa fish on a good day.

I’m sharing this story so I can tell you what happened one night last week. At about 6pm, Dad showed up at my door – with a wide and proud smile – holding a full dinner plate. On the plate were a quarter guinea hen, red potatoes, broccoli, corn, string beans and onions. “Enjoy” he said. (UPDATE: When this post first went up, I’d failed to say that every single thing on that plate was from the  garden. You probably got that, but in the interest of crossing all the ‘t’s’ . . . )

Earlier they’d had guests and fed 11 people. And they did it with the grill and the solar oven. So come the revolution, our plan is to run the fence to enclose my property inside theirs, make the gardens bigger and have the kids man the turrets.

Good thing I love brocolli.

Well done governor. You did the right thing.

Until we end state-sanctioned execution in this country, we are diminished as a people. It’s a stain on our national character, a moral failure. Death at the hand of the state is the very hallmark of tyranny, and has no place in a modern open society.

So good for Governor Kitzhaber of Oregon, who just stopped executions in his state by executive order.

Gov. John Kitzhaber announced today he will not allow the execution of Gary Haugen — or any death row inmate— to take place while he is in office. The death penalty is morally wrong and unjustly administered, Kitzhaber said.

“In my mind it is a perversion of justice,” he said at an emotional news conference in Salem.

George Carlin sings. Really.

I watched the repeat last night of the Mark Twain Award ceremony from 2008.  George Carlin was the honoree – posthumously, as he’d died only a few months before. It’s nice to know that he knew about it and was even planning his speech. They showed this video – see what a nice Irish Catholic boy from Queens NY can do!

Newt keeps a straight face. Lessons from Mrs. G the Third?

Gingrich’s characterization of his activities at his own lobbying firm is simply breathtaking. The media should be on the floor and laughing out loud at this one.

Just saw this at The Washington Examiner (new conservative paper in DC, headed by Micahel Barone and Byron York). Good for them. They took a look, stepped back and took another look, and then headlined their story:

Newt Gingrich was a lobbyist, plain and simple.

. . . we know he was paid consultant for drug makers. That’s the first criterion for being a drug lobbyist.

Here’s the second criterion: While some consultants simply provide strategy or advice, Gingrich directly contacted lawmakers in an effort to win their votes.

Three former Republican congressional staffers told me that Gingrich was calling around Capitol Hill and visiting Republican congressmen in 2003 in an effort to convince conservatives to support a bill expanding Medicare to include prescription-drug subsidies. Conservatives were understandably wary about expanding a Lyndon Johnson-created entitlement that had historically blown way past official budget estimates. Drug makers, on the other hand, were positively giddy about securing a new pipeline of government cash to pad their already breathtaking profit margins.

One former House staffer told me of a 2003 meeting

Rusty the Racist still keepin’ it classy

There really aren’t any limits for him. NASCAR, he says, boo-ed the First Lady because she is ‘uppity’. Uppity.

Limbaugh also said “we don’t like being told what to eat; we don’t like being told how much to exercise; we don’t like being told what we’ve got to drive; we don’t like wasting money; we don’t like our economy being bankrupted. We don’t like 14% unemployment. The question is, what the hell is there to cheer for when Miss Obama and Ms. Biden show up?”

“I’ll tell you something else,” he said. “We don’t like paying millions of dollars for Mrs. Obama’s vacations. The NASCAR crowd doesn’t quite understand why when the husband and the wife are going to the same place, the first lady has to take her own Boeing 757 with family and kids and hangers-on four hours earlier than her husband, who will be on his 747. NASCAR people understand that’s a little bit of a waste. They understand it’s a little bit of uppity-ism.”

Rush doesn’t much like women either. Jill Biden is properly addressed as Dr. Biden, but I guess that’s uppity too – although probably not as uppity as it would be were Dr. Biden a black woman of course.

Mr-Limbaugh-of-Palm-Beach is an old pro at this stuff – here are some of his top hits (and they do keep on coming):

• “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
• “Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
• “The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
• “They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?”
• [To an African American female caller]: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.”
• ”I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.  They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well.  I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.”
• “We need segregated buses… This is Obama’s America.”
• “Obama’s entire economic program is reparations.”

(h/t NewsOne for doing all the work)

“$$$$$$$$” they said. And that was that.

There’s an interesting comment thread going on at The Erstwhile Conservative that has moved into a discussion of how tribal we are and what are the possibilities for electoral reform to fix our broken government.

Jim Wheeler and I were chatting about things like redistricting . I’d just said that I was not hopeful we’d ever be able to repair what’s broken in our government. And this came out:

Ironically though, I think it’s the venerable First Amendment that will ultimately stand in the way, and render us helpless against the poisonous effect of corporate money and obscene levels of lobbying. That’s one of the reasons I’m not hopeful.

I think that’s true – that sacred instrument that has protected our speech for nearly 250 years is finally the weapon being used to destroy our institutions and ultimately our government. Whatever is left once they finish the dirty job, it’s not likely to include a right to free speech.

Thanks, I needed that!

Via friend Jane here are six minutes liberals need to watch. In the liberal view, there are two sides to Obama, which we’ve created as promise vs. reality. Lately we’ve been focused on  the ‘why doesn’t he do more!’ side.

Here’s a calm, rational Democrat reminding us of ‘the promise’ side. Save this one to watch periodically if you haven’t time now. An outtake from him about the volatility in the Middle East these days:

I haven’t seen a single image of a [US] flag being burned. Before 2008, that would have been unimaginable.

Comrades! Tis the season!

Sleeper cell?

A lot of the headlines in my paper this week are about the urgent national need to get shopping. So I guess it’s time …

Kiss the children and oil up your weapons – it’s nearly time for me and my fellow liberals to pick up those arms and go once again into the breach in our never-ending War on Christmas!

Rosanne Cash – 500 Miles

POSTED BY ORHAN

Lobbyist’s plan to undermine OWS

POSTED BY ORHAN

By Jonathan Larsen and Ken Olshansky, MSNBC TV

A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.

Plus, you’ll avoid the stampede of the human herd

Marylee brought this to my attention yesterday and I got it in an email this morning as well. Not a bad idea. And it’s yet another rational segue from Move Your Money and the Shop Local movement.

This Christmas, how about buying services from local businesses instead of buying product?

The email I received said “don’t buy products made in China”. I don’t think China is likely to notice, but the idea of putting some money into the hands of local businesses is appealing and can have an impact. Some ideas:

• a spa day
• gym membership
• car detailing
• massage
• a home visit from a computer tech
• a house cleaning service for a day
• tickets to a local theatre, opera, concert
• locally made crafts and jewelry
• locally created artwork
• a consult with landscapers or a decorator or financial consultant
• for grandparents: how about stocks in a local company
• and of course, gift certificates to any locally owned store or service business or donations in someone’s name

Can’t hurt.

Say no more . . . our shame is complete

This is what it’s come to – child labor laws bad, suffering good.

Did you ever wonder what it would take to shake Alan Keyes out of his hidey-hole?

Who gives a speech wearing a hat?

Wonder no more. It’s gay stuff!!! Teh sex stuff!!! The dreadful gay agenda stuff and poor Penn State!! He had to speak up:

Despite the almost religious promotion of homosexuality now in evidence at all too many of America’s institutions of so-called “higher learning,” it’s hard to believe that they would thus willingly sacrifice themselves to the gods of “political correctness,” especially given the fact that the zealous advocates of homosexual rights are still pretending to draw the line at the sexual abuse of children.

Maybe he sniffs an opening in the GOP field.  C’mon down Alan, join the party!

Join your fellow socialists tomorrow!

Now, a few weeks after Move Your Money Day, comes Shop Local Saturday. And why not. I don’t know where this project originated, but it’s a perfectly logical segue. There are dozens of local videos from around the country here.

Friday oldie!

Ahh, slow dancing to The Platters . . . I fell in love every single time.

Does something sinister this way come?

Cute kittehs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, cute kittehs everywhere. And they pretend they’re the ones being pushed around by the big bad humans, but I ask you – who’s really  in charge here?

(thanks friend Shep)